Nokia SeaRay Windows Phone to start shipping in mid-october ?

You may have noticed that I’m not a big fan of rumors and that I usually try to avoid posting about such things but this time I would like to share with you an interesting bit info that I heard earlier today from a trustworthy source (I tweeted about it here). If you remember I discussed the Nokia SeaRay unveiling not long ago when a Microsoft rep told me during the HTC Titan / Radar launch event that Nokia World (October 26) won’t be where the mysterious phone will be unveiled. This made me assume that Microsoft and Nokia will probably announce the device earlier than Oct 26 given that HTC is now scheduled to ship its Mango handsets on the first week of October in Europe while AT&T was apparently in a rush to announce its line up and spill the beans about the Samsung Focus S and Samsung Focus Flash without waiting for the formal Samsung unveiling (note that we still don’t have the full Samsung devices specs or even a single official picture or render). The Mango update roll out is also still officially expected to start this fall (fall starts on September 23).

What I’ve learned today is that Nokia’s first Windows Phone is set to ship in mid-october (don’t know it’s real name so it could be the SeaRay or Nokia 800 – 703 or whatever). Don’t ask me on which carrier or country because I don’t have any info on that (even though the info I got came from the US everything is pointing at a European focused release). All I was told was that there’s going to be sufficient stock for a proper launch in a few weeks (remember that Compal was expected to start shipping 2 million Windows Phone devices to Nokia this month). Once again don’t take all this info a Gospel because it could turn out to be wrong or the launch plans could simply change in the coming weeks. I will try to keep you updated on this situation if I gather more info though.

Update: Well…Nokia just sort of confirmed what I’m telling now (and for a while too) on twitter. The plans haven’t changed: